The Pound-Drever-Hall Method for Superconducting-Qubit Readout
Abstract
Scaling quantum computers to large sizes requires the implementation of many parallel qubit readouts. Here we present an ultrastable superconducting-qubit readout method using the multi-tone self-phase-referenced Pound-Drever-Hall (PDH) technique, originally developed for use with optical cavities. In this work, we benchmark PDH readout of a single transmon qubit, using room-temperature heterodyne detection of all tones to reconstruct the PDH signal. We demonstrate that PDH qubit readout is insensitive to microwave phase drift, displaying phase stability over 2 hours, and capable of single-shot readout in the presence of phase errors exceeding the phase shift induced by the qubit state. We show that the PDH sideband tones do not cause unwanted measurement-induced state transitions for a transmon qubit, leading to a potential signal enhancement of at least ~dB over traditional heterodyne readout.
Cite
@article{arxiv.2512.03138,
title = {The Pound-Drever-Hall Method for Superconducting-Qubit Readout},
author = {Ibukunoluwa Adisa and Won Chan Lee and Kevin C. Cox and Alicia J. Kollár},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2512.03138},
year = {2025}
}